After the legendary Miami shootout, the FBI’s firearms people were faced with a fistful of problems. Not only were they charged with the responsibility for developing or selecting a new gun for their agents, they also had to come up with a protocol for selecting cartridges and loads. Some dedicated people went at it hard for a considerable period of time, and came up a standard procedure of shooting a series of shots of a given load into properly calibrated ordnance gelatin and through various kinds of intervening barriers. After a while, the so-called “FBI protocol” came to be accepted as the best means of evaluating defensive cartridge performance. Routinely used by the major ammunition makers, it is a reliable standard. That portion of the effort was a resounding success.
October 18, 2012
